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10 THE SOUTHERN WORLD, JULY 16,1882. §onw §it[df “ AFTER TIIE BALE.” Tiny nat and comb'd tbelr beautiful balr. Their long, bright treaaee, one by one. Ah they laughed uud talked In thrfcliamlier there, After the revel waa done. Idly they talked of wallr. and quadrille. Idly they laughed, like other glrle, Whoever the lire, when all Is still, Couth out their braids and curls. Itobes of satin and Brussels lace. Knout of flowers and ribbons, too, Scattered about In every place, For the revel Is through. And Maud and Madge In robes of white, ' The prettiest night-gowns under the sun, Hlockingless.sllpperleas, sit In the night, For the revel la done— Bit and comb their beautiful hair, Those wonderful waves of brown and gold, Till the fire Is out In the chamber there, I lAnd the little bare feet are cold. Then out of the gathering winter chill, All out of the bitter 8t. Agnes weather, While the fire Is out and the house Is still, Maude and Madge together. Maud and Madge In robes of white. The prettiest night-gowns under the sun, Curtained away from tbechlliy night, After the revel Is done— Float along In a splendid dream, To a golden giltern’s tinkling tune, While a thousand lustres shimmering stream In a palace’s grand saloon. Flashing of Jewels and flutter of laces, Tropical odors sweeter than musk, Men and women with beautiful faces, And eyes of tropical dust. And onefaceshining out like a star, One face haunting the dreams of each, And one voice, sweeter than others are, Breaking Into silvery speech— Telling through lips of bearded bloom, An old, old story over again, As down the royal bannered room, To the golden glttern’s strain, Two and two, they dreamily walk, While an unseen spirit walks beside, And all unheard In tlio lover's talk. He clalmeth one for a bride. 0, Maud and Madge, dream on together, With never a pang of Jealous fear! For ere the bitter 8t. Agnes weather Shall whiten another year, itobod for the bridal, and robed for the tomb. Braided brown hair and golden tress. There’ll be only one of you left for the bloom Of the bearded lips to press- only one for the bridal pearls, The robe of satin and Brussels lace— Only one to blush through her curls At the sight of a lover’s face. O beautiful Madge In your bridal white, For you the revel has Just begun; But for her who sleeps in your arms to night, The revel of Life Is done I But rob'd and crown'd with yourealntly bliss, Queen of heaven and brldo of the sun, O beautiful Maud, you’ll never miss The kisses another bath won ! —Nona Penny. MY WELL-MPEKT Nl'MMEK. Thi* story is for "common people,” so if you are one of the uncommon people, or think you are—which is just the same—turn the leaf ami pass on. This is not for you. "Kitty, I’d give the world, if I only knew how to keep house like you. 1 get so dis couraged and disheartened that I feel os if I’d like to give it all up and die. What witli the children, and the housework, and- my ignorance, life is a burden to me.” Poor Cousin Belle 1 a dim suggestion of a plan by which I might help her out of her trouble, had been floating through my brain for several days, and this pathetic appeal brought my ideas to a focus. My mother hud a “faculty.” She was a gentle woman, but when she walked through u room, the chairs, tables, etc., used to mar shal themselves into place, as if a general was giving the word of command to his sol diers. All of her daughters were instructed in housewifely duties. 1 not only served an apprenticeship us "second girl,” but was "chief cook" us well, and when my father suid, "Killy, this bread is just us good os your mother’s,” 1 thought 1 hud graduated with tiie highest honors. This wus my good fortune, l’oor Belle lmd never been taught uuythiiig but the piano, and, us she sagely remurked, "They couldn’t eat nusic.” This was her ill-fortune, and so it came about that Belle, a thousand times prettier and brighter than 1 ever thought of being, lmd jpHteii the threads in her web of life all in a tangle, where 1 could have woven with out let or hindrance. Now, this was my plan. Belle was nat- urully very quick and bright, and I could stay with her six months and train her in house-keeping. All that she needed was to be taught. But—alas for the “buts” in this world—wo had planned a lovely summer at home. We had talked about it all winter. Could 1 give it up and stay shut up in this little, “pokey," unlinished village, teaching Cousin Belle to do what was as easy to me as Mother Goose’s melodies and the alphabet? That night when I went up to my room, 1 put on my “thinking cap,” and sat down to make my decision. "Belle,” said I, the next morning at breakfast, “I think there is a way out of your trouble.” “Oh 1” said she, radiantly, “if you only could help me 1” “But, Belle, if we find a way out you’ll have to abdicate, and let me be a kind of ab solute Empress of China for a few months. How would you like that?" said I, alittle doubtfully, for Belie was several years my senior, and a matron's dignity must be very tenderly approached. "Kitty, you’ve no idea how heavenly it would be to me, to have some one tell me every day just what to do, again. That is one of my woist troubles. To think every morning, when 1 get up that I must tell my self and everybody else what to do, when I don't know wbat I want done myself.” “Well, then,” said I, “we’ll begin to-day.” “Listen, Harry, and children,” said Belle, clapping her hands gleefully, “you must all mind Cousin Kitty, and so must I. We'll all be young together. I begin to feel re stored already." "Very well,” said I, judicially, "to-day is Thursday. We will devote the rest of the week to getting the house in perfect order. We must have a clean casket to put our jewel of a home in.” Saturday night came, and the house was like a band-box. Then I put my finger on a “ tender spot ” in the household economy. ‘ About one-fourth of the needless work was caused by a lack of order. The Lord of Misrule was sovereign, and it sometimes looked as if hats, and coats, dresses and playthings had rained down. “Now,” said I, quoting niy mother, “the house cannot be untidy if every person puts his or her own things in place.” “Hear! hear!” shouted cousin Harry, Belle’s husband, mischievously. “ You may laugh, Harry,” said I, shaking my licud at him, “but it is true.” “ That'sso," he replied, “there is consider able sense in that curly head of yours, after all." “ Very well,” said I, “ what is the use of ‘ sense ’ if it won’t help us out of our troubles! Now, I am going to draw up—what do you call it?—an agreement, by which each mem ber of the family binds himself to keep his or her things in perfect order.” All entered merrily into the arrangement Harry drew up a formidable looking docu ment. He and Belle signed first; under neath the children wrote in regular order, and one of them gleefully put the pen be tween the baby’s chuffy fingers and guided them to make "hismark.” Then we reduced the regular routine of the work to a jierfect system, and every day cousin Belle wus to devote her spare time to learning some one thing. "Well, Kitty, wliat is the juvenile pupil to learn to-day ? " " What would you like ? " “ If I could only make such bread os you used to have at your house) It was the very poetry of foodl Mine is sour, or it won’t rise, or something is the matter with it half the time, so that it isn’t fit to eat” “Belle," said l profoundly, “haven’tyou learned from Tyndall, and Huxley, and Maria Mitchell, and the Popular Science Monthly, that making bread is a chemical process, aud that every chemical process is governed by certain fixed, unchangeable laws?" Belle looked a little bewildered; then smiling archly, raid: “I haven't devoted much time to chem istry for the last ten years.” “ Yes, that’s the trouble,” said I; "it has not been chemistry, but something else be ginning with C, viz., chance. Now, give your ingredients combined in a certain man ner. and as an absolute result your bread is just os sure to rise as the sun is to rise in tiie east. You can't keep it down, unless you put a mill-stone on it. I suppose, Belle, you have wasted some food in experiments?” “Some!” if you could seethe bread and pie and cake I have thrown away you would be horrified. I sometimes think we shall come to want as a punishment.” •’ Well, we won’t waste any more. In six lessons you can learn to make as good bread as anybody, or you arc not the bright woman I think you are. So this week we will make bread every day. Of course, we cannot eat it all, but what we don’t want we will give to the poor." And so every day I sat by the table and gave Belle instructions, while the pretty hands, which even hard work could not de face, molded the loaves which came out of the oven snowy within, a delicate brown without,—the sweet and odorous staff of life. Saturday I left her to her own devices, and I don’t believe she blushed more when Harry proposed to her than when he gave her the highest praise a man can offer— “This is just as good as my mother’s." Poor Harry I what a digestion he must have had to begin with, and what a bete noir “ my mother’s bread ” is to many a young house keeper! Tuesday afternoon I saw something in the parlor which made me sit down and think a little. The result was a note, thus: “Dbar Habby—Will you come down to the house as soon as you can conveniently ? In great haste, Kitty.” * Down came Harry at a pace like the lope of a California horse. Breathless he rushed in. “Is Belle sick?” “No," I replied; “but come into the par lor a moment.” - “Harry,” said I, severely, “you remember our compact, and the duty of parents to set good examples?” I could see a glimmer of suspicion in his face. Then I made a desperate pluuge. "Look over on the sofa. I only sent for you to hang up your overcoat." “ Pause, awful to me, while Harry vibrat ed between anger and merriment. Finally, good fellow that he was, he sat back in his chair and laughed heartily. “ Kitty, I’ll pay you for this, if I live. The idea of getting a man home from his offleo to hangup his overcoat! What will you bet that you don’t catch me again ?'” “BetI You are demoralizing! I have lived in New York, and teen Jerome Park ; I have been in Saratoga, and heard about the races, but I have never made a bet. However, just to ‘make up’ with you, Harry, I’ll bet tiie price of that new China set which Belle looked at so longingly the other day.” “ Very well,”,said Harry: "but you see if she gets it I” After this it was a source of much amuse ment to Belle and myself to see Harry every morning sauntering carelessly around the room, os if he had no object whatever, but slyly looking out of the corner of his eyes to see if anything of his was astray, and then pouncing upon the offending article, like the eagle upon his prey. I lost my bet. And now descend we, at one fell swoop, from esthetics to—potatoes. We had made out our bill of fare, and on this bill figured the delicious esculent afore said, twice a day, breakfast and dinner. So fourteen times a week Belle was In the habit of disappearing in the nethermost regions with a little pan, which she filled with the ugly, dirty things, and then subjected to the wearisome preparatory processes. Now, a true housekeeper is a labor-saving institution; so, one day, I took a basket and disappeared. When I returned with it full, Belle looked up aghast. " My goodness! are we going to have a reg iment for dinner?" said she. “No,” I replied, “ this is for the week— one journey for fourteen.” One day I walked out to the shop of a halfway Hoosler carpenter, and gave him directions for making a dish-drainer—a thing he had never heard of. He brought it to us the next day, and we found it a source of solid comfort; but, alas! I lost my stand ing with the Hoosier. That evening, when he went home to “bacon and greens” for the third time that day, he told his wife, who with kind con sideration, managed to send it along to me, that “Them'ere girls was powerful cute, but he didn't think he should want one for a wife. He’d ruther have one of ‘onary’ kind. For a woman to be telling a man how to make things, somehow seemed to him agin nater.” “Now, Belle," said, I one morning, “cof fee.” Belle looked subdued at once, as if she expected a little more chemistry, but I spared her. “ Give good coffee, properly roasted and ground, plus boiling water, and a subtle something which Sambo called ‘de know liow,’ and the result must be—nectar. So this week we will have coffee for our text,” and the result was, as it mutt be, nectar. So it went on, and before the expi ration of the six months, I formally abdi cated, and Belle took the reins again, because she knew just how to manage them. And did things go on in this smooth way, and bread and coffee, and all the necessaries of family comfort come without any slips or mishaps? There are “ spots on the sun,” there are erratic wanderings among the stars, there are clouds as well as sunshine, and this little household was human. There were days when things weie very wrong indeed. When the children were cross, and Belle was tired, and I—well, I had “ nerves," I believe that is the nice way of saying it. But those days were few. There is nothing like a sense of duty to curb the wandering fancy. Belle, like many another troubled young housekeeper, needed only a little instruction, and writes me that she has now a happy, well-ordered home. As for me, it is certainly a very deplorable and mournful thing for a woman to be called “cute”—but then, if one lias managed to help another a little by it, the odium is more supportable. I have had my gay summer since, but this I still call, My Well-Spent Summer.—Chrit- tian Union. A Woman About the House. It is conceded by all that tiie adornment and beautifying of a home depends in a great measure upon the tact and taste of women by the addition of the many knick- knacks which originate only in their own fertile brains—in the construction of which the lords of creation are prone to look upon with something of a cynical smile as entirely beneath their massive intellect. But it is a noticeable fact, after a woman’s deft fingers and busy brain have taken hold of a room— it is transformed as by a magic wand, bright ness peeps out front the darkest corners, creating a glow throughout that conqiels even the most unwilling of our husbands and brothers to admit the handiwork of women is not to be despised, and almost uncon sciously fall to considering the effect these little “gimcracks” would have upon a room they have in mind, of some dear old auut Prim, whose sole ambition in life is to keep that best front-room closed against light and sunshine, and daily comes off victor with the dust fiend. 8he would defy you to at any time find a fly or speck of dirt upon or about that room. The fringed white curtains are as white as soap and sunshine can make them; but, nevertheless, every “quarterly meetln” finds those same curtains freshened and rehung. With all this cleanliness our convert would like to try the effect of some of sister’s or wife’s new-fangled fancy-work. The white fringed stand cover, to be sure, has done duty for many a year to the stand that has so faithfully borne the family Bible and